Shadows of Vengeance, page 2
With almost two hours before his flight, Morrison bought a couple of papers and plunked himself down near the gate. But there was no way he could read. Nor could he doze. The thoughts of Larisa were overpowering. He understood why she had gone back to Mallorca to die …
“I never thought I’d do this … not ever … not anywhere … certainly not with a man.” Larisa lay on her stomach absorbing the sun’s rays. She rose slightly from her towel, folded her arms under her chin, and tilted her head to see if he was listening.
“I heard you. Don’t worry yourself,” he chided. “I understand, and all your little worries have been registered for posterity—except one.” Jack Morrison opened one eye to look over at her. There were tiny white flecks of salt on her naked rump where the sea water had evaporated. “Why not with a man? There’s no other reason to remove your clothes on a beach if you’re not with a man. Who’s to appreciate?” he teased.
His eye closed, but she saw the crinkles at the corner and knew he was smiling. She loved him all the more for it. Larisa had told him even before they went to the beach that she was nervous. It was all so silly, she agreed—a problem of her upbringing. She explained that she loved him very much but the idea of taking off her clothes—beyond the privacy of her bedroom, more or less in front of a man, him included, in broad daylight—was very difficult for her. And after her experience with the KGB. Her voice drifted off.
But she had finally done it that day on the hidden beach at Paradisio, the one Gaetan had told them about. There hadn’t been another human being in sight all day, just as Gaetan had promised. As they strolled the beach, Jack had turned, kissed her very gently, and explained that he was going to swim out to the boat for more wine. She could watch him or join him.
Larisa’s reaction was to sit down on the warm, soft sand, hugging her knees to her chest, staring across the bay. His suit dropped beside her. When she heard nothing, she turned to see if he was still there, and he was—with a grin on his face and nothing else. She looked up at him, then back out to sea without a word.
“You don’t know what you’re missing.” He ran to the water’s edge, wading out a few feet before he dove into the calm water.
Larisa watched while he played, swimming strongly for a while, floating on his back, then diving deep, white butt momentarily gleaming in the sun. It was all foolishness! She cast a brief glance over her shoulder. There was no one about and she knew there would be no one. The old traditions belonged back in Kursk, buried in the past! There were just the two of them, Larisa Alushta and Jack Morrison, and they were very much in love. Sitting in the send … watching foolishness! And the KGB—Stalbo—that was in the past! Without quite knowing why, she rose to her feet to remove her own bathing suit, in a sort of slow motion at first, then more rapidly. It had been the most natural thing in the world for Jack, and quite by surprise it became so for her too. All the worries she’d expressed, the “never-never-dos” learned from her babushka’d mother, had slipped away like so many clouds of fluff. There wasn’t a reason in the world she shouldn’t go swimming with her man.
And now, as she watched the crinkles around the corners of his eyes relax, Larisa understood that this man would never make her do anything she couldn’t bring herself to do. Wiggling her hips, she inched her towel closer to his. She smiled seductively as his eyes opened wide, leaning over to nip at his shoulder.
“May I look now?” Morrison hadn’t moved his head, but those telltale crinkles around his eyes were evident again. His grin stretched from ear to ear.
Larisa kissed his forehead, the tip of his nose, then brushed his lips gently with her own when he raised his head. “Of course. I’ve been staring all along, and loving every minute of it.” It was her turn now and she giggled like a naughty little girl. “It’s the only fair thing to do.”
Morrison moved exactly as she anticipated—he rolled over and reached out for her. She reacted exactly as she wanted to, reaching out for him. They made love on the beach and her little fears were forgotten. She loved Jack Morrison with an intensity she’d never experienced, and she expressed herself in so many ways that afternoon that he would never forget a moment of that glorious day.
The memories … they seemed so long ago, but it all came back now as if it was just yesterday. Her hospital skin had been so pale—yet in just a few cautious days, her first sunburn turned into a luscious tan. And with that change, her body took on a deep, caramel hue that opened up new fantasies to him. Should they spend all their time at their very private beach frolicking nude, or should he encourage her to wear the bikini he’d bought for her in Palma? At night, that faint outside glow pervaded their room and highlighted the tiny expanses of white skin that remained. When she learned how much that appealed to Morrison, she tantalized him with it. Oh, God, she was beautiful!
There’d been a tiny restaurant near their hotel that served grilled, fresh fish with little dishes of exotic sauces on the side. Coming from the inland reaches of Kursk, Larisa had never experienced fish like that, and they returned to their little restaurant again and again. And the owner, Gaetan, a Maltese, offered a wine that Morrison had almost forgotten—the Lacrima Christi, a fresh, green wine from Malta that did not age well but enhanced everything it touched when it was new. They would leave that restaurant on warm evenings, a little bit drunk, and wander up the hillside to the hotel, arm in arm, and she would teach him folk songs from her country. He remembered the times she would play her balalaika. After Mallorca, no matter where he was, the sound of that sweet-sad instrument would flood his mind with … Larisa.
In the midst of his mind’s wanderings, he faintly heard the gate announcement. The voice sounded so familiar, though the accent was very different—it lacked the guttural intonations … of Stalbo! That’s who it sounded like. Stalbo! That poor unfortunate checking tickets sounded like the man Morrison hated more than any other in the world.
He was vaguely aware of his fists clenching and unclenching as he stood up and reached for his ticket. If Stalbo ever got near Larisa again, he’d— The thoughts that instantly filled his mind sickened him. But Stalbo was deserving. He was a sadist. He had been when he massacred the German prisoners at Kursk and his own people. He had been when he survived Beria’s reign by being even more vicious. Morrison doubted there was anyone in the Kremlin hierarchy who had ever known Stalbo as anything other than a sadist. And Larisa, poor Larisa, had learned that personally.
Jack Morrison was sickened because he suddenly wanted to do everything to Stalbo that the man had ever done to his victims.
But what he had to do first was get to her before Stalbo’s men did.
The ticket agent, who had the misfortune to sound like Stalbo, would never forget the eyes of the American who passed by him into the plane without a word.
Daken stood at the end of the ramp in Palma. There was no trouble telling who he was. The airport was crowded with vacationers, Europeans, Americans, more old than young—but they were all on holiday and their outfits seemed outlandish to someone who had just come from Atlanta. And Daken … Daken was a sore thumb in a seersucker suit, plain tie, and Panama-style hat. What he needs, Morrison thought, is a mustache and cigar, maybe the faint outline of a shoulder holster to complete the image.
“Jack.” Daken shook hands firmly, his eyes fixed on a spot beyond Morrison’s shoulder. “You’re fast … didn’t expect you so soon.”
“I don’t have to tell you what she means—”
“Come on, I got a car out front,” Daken interrupted. He turned, gesturing over his shoulder for Morrison to follow. “How many bags?” he inquired curtly.
“One.” What is this shit? He’s supposed to be a friend, the one who called about Larisa.
“Let me have the stub. I’ll have one of the boys pick it up and bring it over to the hotel.”
“I don’t want to go to any hotel. I’m on my way to Santa Ponsa.” He was irritated now. “I didn’t come to pay a social call.”
“Can it.” Daken glanced over his shoulder and caught Morrison’s eye for the first time. “My first job is to get you out of here alive. Things have changed a bit. If you don’t want to act like a corpse on a job, you’re going to be acting like a corpse in no time.” His hand reached back and brushed Morrison’s jacket as if he was going to give him a friendly punch in the arm. “Didn’t think you were carrying—not through Madrid anyway.”
“Daken …” What the hell was this?
“We’ll fix you up in the car. Hope you don’t have to use it.” Now he gripped Morrison’s arm tightly. “They wouldn’t do anything in the airport, but we’re not taking any chances outside. I know you’re tired and anxious, but do exactly as I say, okay?”
This wasn’t the way Morrison had planned it—not after all these years. If Larisa was dying—if she needed him—he wanted to get to Santa Ponsa as fast as possible. Those bastards—they couldn’t be after her now, not when she was already more dead than alive! He didn’t give a damn about himself but …
“Outside.” Daken pointed. “The black BMW. You get in the back seat with Chase.”
Chase! He was supposed to be in London. What the hell was he doing in Palma? He was a specialist—forensics. He could also eliminate people without a trace of …
They were at the glass doors. “Go!” Daken ordered.
Morrison sprinted across the cement to the open door. Bending slightly, he saw that it was indeed that weird—
Chase reached out and grabbed his arm, pulling him inside. “Sorry to rush you like this, old boy.” The accent was clipped and British, the mustache neatly trimmed as always, small gray eyes boring deep into whatever they saw. Morrison fell forward, off balance. Chase put out a steadying hand, grasping the other’s shoulder. Morrison winced at the sudden, sharp pain, almost like a needle. Then he understood.
“Son of a bitch … son of a …” But it was already too late. He could feel it taking effect. The world was falling away so fast. Larisa needed him. Chase looked down sadly at him, apology already evident on his face. Then it was blackness.
Daken leaned over from the front seat as the car sped away. “Son of a bitch. I never hated myself before,” he muttered through clenched teeth.
“He hardly felt a thing,” Chase answered. But he’d recognized the expression on Morrison’s face and understood that look of hatred as the eyes struggled to stay open.
“I know. But he’s not going to forget … he’s going to hate us for one good, long time. …”
Daken’s voice trailed off. But orders had to be carried out. Somehow, for whatever reason, they had word that Stalbo had left Moscow. Then he’d been sighted in Palma! They all knew what Morrison would do if he ever thought Stalbo was nearby. But there was still too much at stake. They had to keep Stalbo alive for the time being. They couldn’t let Morrison kill him.
1943
KURSK
LARISA’S STORY
The rumbling was low at times, distant, then increasing in crescendo so suddenly that even the dirt floor of the cellar shook as if a giant strode the blackened fields outside. Larisa was sure at those moments that if she peeked through the trapdoor in the far corner, the sky would be as bright as day, even though it was the middle of the night. The flash of the guns was an unceasing nightmare.
Their shelter was the basement of what had once been their home. It had never been fancy—a rude, thatched-roof structure typical of all the peasant dwellings in the area between Orel and Kursk. Her father built their home in a cluster of similar buildings with the aid of the other peasant families who tended the fields in the area. They worked together, they played together, they suffered the poverty of their existence together, and now they were dying together in droves. Larisa had no idea in her earlier years that she lived poorly; there had never been anything else to compare this to. There had always been enough to eat, they remained dry, and only the sharpest of winter’s cold seeped through the chinks in the walls to drive them closer to the fire.
When the Germans first came, they took her father and her older brother. The boy was only twelve but the Nazis said that was old enough to work. For some reason, their house and most of their village remained standing, though much of the countryside was devastated as the panzers moved eastward. Life for Larisa and her mother had remained above the starvation level because the women of the village banded together and hid a portion of their food from the Nazi foraging. But when the Red Army held at Stalingrad, and the Germans began to fall back, then the remaining citizens in the Kursk region learned what suffering was all about.
Their village of Ponyri was on the border of what came to be known later in the history books as the Kursk Salient. In that late spring of 1943, Adolf Hitler reacted with fury at his retreating generals. While the latter understood that wisdom called for withdrawal and retrenchment, there was no contradicting the Führer. A counterattack was launched and a pocket perhaps one hundred miles deep and seventy-five wide was punched eastward into the Russian lines. Though it was north of Kursk and encompassed the city of Orel, it was forever the Kursk Salient.
Larisa Alushta, at the age of six, never knew nor cared what any battle or territory was named. She was concerned only that the fighting stop and that her father and brother come home and rebuild the only home she had ever known. There was no way of knowing when her mother wrapped her in her blanket that night in the cellar of their dirt hovel in Ponyri that the most fearsome battle in the history of mankind was about to burst over their own village.
It must be raining more heavily now, she reasoned. The drip-drip of water in one corner was now a steady flow. Her mother had used a stick to carve a path for the water across the dirt floor to the far corner. As long as the rain ended before morning, they would remain dry. It seemed for a moment—a very short one—that the guns might be halting. But it was only a heavy shower outside that had muffled the sound, for the ground they lay on shook with renewed force as additional guns opened fire. She shivered and rolled closer to her mother. The armies fired at each other every night but never at this magnitude.
“Why …” she began haltingly as she grew more frightened. “Why are they shooting so much now?”
Her mother reached out an arm in comfort. She hadn’t slept at all. She knew all about the offensive. The partisans had warned the villagers of what was to come. “They are going to drive the Germans away … forever. After it’s all over, we’ll be free again. …” Her voice trailed off as she thought of what it would take to drive the enemy west.
Since the battle for the salient had declined to daily skirmishes, it became evident that both sides were reinforcing themselves. Partisans sent daily reports to Zhukov’s headquarters of massive armor arriving from the west—the immense Panther tanks, capable of piercing almost any armor at long range, the powerful Tigers built by Porsche, and the Ferdinands with their 88-mm tank-destroying, long-barreled guns. Never before had any nation seen such armor concentrated on one battlefield. The partisans reported that their contacts knew of a similar massive buildup by their own forces to the east. Joseph Stalin was equally intent on smashing the German forces and ridding his country of Nazis forever.
Larisa raised her head hesitantly. “What’s that?” It was distinctly different in tenor, that sound that came to her now. It was a deep, low rumbling, a steady sound that did not rise and fall in the staccato fashion of the immense artillery weapons. Perhaps she had been listening to it for a while. Now that she considered it, maybe there had been a steady humming sound that had never changed against the rumble of gunfire, but now it was more distinct.
Her mother’s arm tightened about her. “The tanks …” Her voice caught momentarily. “I don’t know whose they are but I know that sound.” She was talking to herself now, reassuring her heart that the fear gnawing at the corners must be held back.
Larisa nodded to herself. All along she had assumed they were tanks, but she wanted to be sure in her own mind. She had seen what the armored monsters were capable of in a matter of minutes. They were so fast—once they were almost upon her before she could run home. That was when she saw them blasting away at each other across a river. That day there had been less than a dozen of them, but the noise was deafening as they maneuvered to shoot, crashing through the scrub forest, knocking over trees that to her had seemed immovable. One had actually driven straight through a house no different than her own, firing its big gun as it came out the other side. When it was over, two of the giants had been left burning in the field, one belching forth clouds of oily black smoke until it exploded. A man had leaped out of the other, his clothing afire, and had run until a machine gun from the other had dropped him in his tracks. When she thought back on that day, knowing that she had been frozen in place unable to run to protect herself, she realized that it had taken only a few moments, but that she would never forget the sounds of that little battle—or the man on fire.
Now, the sound that came to her—if it was tanks—could only mean that there were so many more of them that it stretched the imagination. She had seen so much of war for her tender age that she was ready to accept almost anything—almost—if only there was enough to eat. That’s strange, she thought, quite by accident. There are more people who die every day, yet there never seems to be additional food!
“Larisa …” her mother whispered before she realized there was no reason to do so. “Larisa,” she continued in a stronger voice, “I think this battle may last a long time. We have nothing left to eat.” She rose to a sitting position. “Before they get any closer, I’m going to get some food for us … some bread, at least. There’s no telling …” Her voice weakened again.
